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XT-FDC project level of interest

Darn... Just picked up a PCB to build one and was hoping perhaps someone had still been working away on that side of the project. I'd be interested in giving it a try, but unfortunately, I know pretty much nothing about doing that sort of programming...

Thanks,

Wesley
 
Love the idea of combining an XT-IDE and a high-density FDC, and even better if the extra logic is added that allows the XT-IDE to work in Slot 8 (I have one that does, but most XT-IDE's are missing the extra circuits). Doing this eliminates a common BIOS conflict (the XT-IDE BIOS unnecessarily uses to large a memory space that conflicts with some high-density FDC's BIOS). And, with Slot 8 support, such a card would save the average user 2 full slots and they'd not have to do mods like I had to do to deal with BIOS address conflicts.

Regards,
Mike
 
wesleyfurr said:
Has there been any additional work done on the ROM drive functionality for this board?
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modem7 said:
Not that I am aware of.
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wesleyfurr said:
Darn... Just picked up a PCB to build one and was hoping perhaps someone had still been working away on that side of the project. I'd be interested in giving it a try, but unfortunately, I know pretty much nothing about doing that sort of programming...
Click to expand...
I do not have suitable contents for the ROM drive, but I can contribute something.

I was one of the testers of the XT-FDC card, and to help evaluate the electronics of the ROM Drive functionality, I created a DOS program to:
1. Erase the 29F040 chip (erase the ROM Drive).
2. Bring a chosen 8 KB page (1 to 64) within the 29F040 into the 8 KB window of the XT-FDC. [Default page at power on is page #1]
3. Show electronic signature (device ID) of 29F040 chip.
4. Show protection status of 29F040's eight sectors.

I have made the program pretty, renamed it to XTFDC_RD.EXE, and placed a copy of it at [here].

Known issue #1

Sometimes when erasing the 29F040 chip, one of the eight sectors fails to erase. A retry usually works.

Known issue #2

No ability to program the 29F040 from a file. I had started the coding for that, but discovered that the operation was taking about 100 times longer than it should have. I aborted that because my EPROM programmer had the ability to program the 29F040.

The write slowness is something that I will look into later.
 
modem7 said:
I do not have suitable contents for the ROM drive, but I can contribute something.
Click to expand...

I have similar code used for the IBM PCJr JR-IDE board. I don't have the same issues you are reporting with a SST 29F040 chip. You might want to quickly review it and make sure nothing is being done differently from your implementation. Public SVN is here:

https://www.retrotronics.org/svn/jride/trunk/
 
I know this is an old thread, but I have an active need for a floppy controller that can be configured to use custom system settings because I cannot disable to primary floppy controller on the motherboard. Is there anybody making these or would be willing to sell me theirs?
 
chjmartin2 said:
I know this is an old thread, but I have an active need for a floppy controller that can be configured to use custom system settings because I cannot disable to primary floppy controller on the motherboard. Is there anybody making these or would be willing to sell me theirs?
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About six months ago, someone was selling XT-FDC's on eBay, but I cannot see the listing anymore.

If you cannot source one locally, an option is for me to post you one from Australia. I cannot guarantee compatibility with your Vendex 888-XT.
 
Don't know about the XT-FDC, but the Micro Solutions Compaticard IV is very configurable (port, DMA, IRQ) and comes with appropriate software. You might want to look for one of those.
 
modem7 said:
About six months ago, someone was selling XT-FDC's on eBay, but I cannot see the listing anymore.

If you cannot source one locally, an option is for me to post you one from Australia. I cannot guarantee compatibility with your Vendex 888-XT.
Click to expand...

I would happily take you up on that - happy to pay for it. I know it isn't a sure thing for compatibility, but the Microsolutions Compaticard goes for $700 to $3000 on e-bay, so, that's out for me at the moment!
 
To be honest, I didn't read it all. But to I want to mention this: my XT uses a 16-bit FDC/IDE card. The FDC part is 8 bits and I use Sergey Kiselev's software to control it. And I connected an 8-bit CF card to the IDE port.
 
Ruud said:
To be honest, I didn't read it all. But to I want to mention this: my XT uses a 16-bit FDC/IDE card. The FDC part is 8 bits and I use Sergey Kiselev's software to control it. And I connected an 8-bit CF card to the IDE port.
Click to expand...
I also use an IDE to SD, but am having some trouble configuring it to boot to DOS. There really are not good instructions out there for this. Just people saying, I DID THIS... but no directions to explain how.
 
Back in the day I had a Winbond VESA local bus multifunction card that had IDE hanging off of the VLB and floppy function off of an 8 bit slot. The floppy part worked fine in a 5150. I think you would need newer BIOS (1986 XT) to use it with 1.44M drives, though. These cards are fairly easy to find.

They also had serial and parallel which worked fine and saved using multiple slots, which helped since my 5150 only had 5. The other devices were a Paradise EGA card, an 8 bit Future domain TMC8XX SCSI card, a Sound Blaster 1.5, and a SixPakPlus. If I recall correctly, I did not have enough IRQs and couldn’t use the 6PP’s parallel port.
 
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